Annotated Bibliography – Forensic Linguistics

         My research questions are the following: what is forensic linguistics, why is it useful and what is it used for? I chose these questions because I also study law and while I was reading cases, I realized how important language use can be during a trial or during legal proceedings.

Forensic linguists are able to identify the writer of a text or the circumstances of the speaker from an audio recording. Those are just a couple of reasons why forensic linguistics should be discussed and that is the reason why I chose these topics. I found three very interesting articles in connection with my research that fully cover my research questions because they state what forensic linguistics is, what is it good for and where and how is it used in legal cases. 

Olsson, J., & Luchjenbroers, J. (2014). Forensic Linguistics (3rd ed.). United Kingdom: Bloomsbury.

Olsson and Luchjenbroers examine the significance of forensic linguists in different legal cases. They argue that with the help of forensic linguists, legal cases or proceedings and private disputes between parties – that may lead later to legal actions – can be processed more easily. After they describe what forensic linguistics is, they start to write about legal cases and how this kind of knowledge can help with them to find out the truth.

Furthermore, they examine how at each stage of a legal proceedings (investigative, trial and appeal stage) forensic linguistics can be used to discover the truth. Olsson and Luchjenbroers claim that in the investigative stage, forensic linguists can help to throw any light on the cause or circumstances of the death. In the trial stage, any question concerning texts can come up, such as “Who wrote this?” or “Was there a threat during the recording of the audio?”. In the appeal stage, forensic linguists are called to further investigate the wording, the interpretation or the authorship of a text or even give a new interpretation for a forensic text. The authors mention also private matters in which forensic linguistics can be helpful. In these cases, linguists will need to help with, for example, the identification of the author of a hate mail or plagiarism.

This article gives a clear overview of what forensic linguistics is. Olsson and Luchjenbroers talk about the stages of legal proceedings and how forensic linguistics can be used at every stage. Out of my three research materials, this book was indeed the best source to understand and to get more information about forensic linguistics in general due to the fact that the book starts with a general overview of forensic linguistics and after that, the writers talk about private matters in which forensic linguistics is used. As a matter of fact, this book answers two of my questions because it introduces the readers to what forensic linguistics is and to what it is used for.     

McMenamin, G. (2002). Forensic Linguistics: Advances in Forensic Stylistics (1st ed.). United States: CRC Press.

McMenamin puts an emphasis on presenting an introduction to language for a non-linguist in general and with the help of this general introduction, also telling about how forensic linguistics is connected to the field of applied linguistics. He examines how different parts of applied linguistics, such as language acquisition, individual differences in language acquisition and written language and its authorship questions, become the basis for understanding the goals and methods of forensic linguistics and forensic stylistics. Furthermore, he talks in detail about how forensic phonetics helps linguists to identify the authorship of a text or audio recording, which is helpful during the legal proceedings. McMenamin uses understandable arguments, logically built up claims, charts and pictures throughout his work that all help the reader to easily understand everything.

This article gives indeed a good description of the methods of forensic linguistics and forensic stylistics – especially forensic phonetics – that can clear authorship questions in a legal case. This article is useful as additional information because it talks about forensic phonetics too but it does not give full answer to my questions on its own.

Eades, D. (2005). Applied Linguistics and Language Analysis in Asylum Seeker Cases. In Applied Linguistics (4th ed., Vol. 26, pp. 503-526). New England: Oxford University Press.

Eades deals with the description of the applications of different forensic linguistic methods in immigration issues, especially in refugee cases, to determine eligibility for refugee status through validating nationality claims.

The study starts with the author’s general introduction of forensic linguistics, in which she shows the connection between other fields of applied linguistics and forensic linguistics that is similar to Mcmenamin’s way of introducing this new field of applied linguistic to the readers. After that, Eades examines the significance of forensic linguistics in legal cases. She talks about how forensic linguistic is becoming one of the tools of the investigations of refugee cases. Forensic linguists can help with refugees’ language analysis in cases where they do not have proof of their nationality and origins.

On the other hand, she outlines the concerns of forensic language analysis in asylum seeker cases, too. She claims that there are overgeneralized assumptions and practices in the linguistic identification of asylum seekers that might give false results and lead to false conclusions. Instead of talking about the connection between forensic linguistics and applied linguistics throughout her whole study – as McMenamin does – she focuses on real cases and the actual use of forensic techniques during the legal proceedings of asylum seekers.

This article gives real life examples of cases where forensic linguistics was the most important key in order to solve the asylum seeker cases. Eades’s research article was important in my research because it proved my original thoughts about the importance of forensic linguistics in legal cases. Eades proved with logical arguments from real life experience why forensic linguistics is one of the most important factors during an asylum seeker case and that it is useful also in other legal proceedings too. This article is useful because of its focus on real life examples that are more convincing than the theoretical ones.